from the stop-it dept

Okay, so we debunked this silly argument back in 2006 (and again in 2008), but it appears to be back again now that the net neutrality battle is heating up: it's the idea that because we have CDNs, the internet has never been neutral (for those who don't know, a CDN is a Content Delivery Network -- a system, like Akamai, that allows internet companies to distribute their content geographically, so that download speeds are slightly shorter across the network, since physical distance is not as far). But that's based on a bogus definition of "net neutrality" that only telco shills or very confused people make. The simplest way of explaining this is as follows: CDNs make the surfing experience better for everyone, by better distributing content to speed delivery to everyone. The efforts by big broadband to break net neutrality is to set up a tollbooth so that they get to pick winners and losers. In short: CDNs benefit end users. Breaking net neutrality only benefits the big broadband gatekeepers. This is about the power of big broadband to pick winners and losers.

And yet... it's the myth that just won't die. The worst example comes from Ev Ehrlich. As you may recall, we wrote about Ehrlich's reality-challenged claims a few months ago (right after a PR person who pushed those thoughts to us refused to confirm or deny whether Ehrlich was being paid by big telcos or broadband providers). Ehrlich's arguments weren't even close to accurate back then, and in the intervening months, they seem to have become even more reality-challenged:

It's great to say that everything on the Net should be equal. But there's nothing neutral about the Net now, despite what a few strident voices say. When Google caches its content around the world so that its stuff gets to you faster than its competitors, is that neutral? When Netflix buys - or perhaps one day builds - its own, faster private network to take its movies from its servers to your ISP so it can get a competitive advantage, is that neutral?

Again, no one has ever said that internet providers can't improve the overall experience for all of their end users. The issue is not about that, no matter how badly Ehrlich and other broadband shills would like it to be. It's about whether or not the broadband gatekeepers can pick winners and losers by setting up tollbooths and fast and slow lanes. When Google and Netflix improve their networks, the benefit goes to everyone. When Comcast sets up tollbooths, the only thing that goes to everyone is... increased costs.

The only thing neutral about neutrality is the price these big websites pay - under Netflix's "strong neutrality" proposal, it would pay nothing to get access to you. And that means that you pay more than you should.

Bullshit. Seriously. This is flat out bullshit. Netflix pays through the nose for its bandwidth. As we've asked in the past, any time a big broadband shill makes the bogus argument that Netflix "pays nothing," let's see if Ev Ehrlich will trade his broadband bill with Netflix's. After all, they pay "nothing" right? Of course, the weasel wording here is paying nothing "to get access to you." But that's also bullshit. Netflix pays to get on the internet. People pay to get on the internet to get access to Netflix. If Netflix then has to pay again to get access to you, then it's double paying for the bandwidth you already paid for. That's a big part of what big broadband is trying to do: to get everyone to pay twice for the same internet access.

And the idea that you pay more because Netflix doesn't have to pay tolls to Comcast, Verizon and AT&T is ludicrous. Hell, Netflix recently did agree to pay interconnection fees to all three of those companies. So, according to Ehrlich, now that it's paying, Comcast, Verizon and AT&T should all be lowering their bills, right? Right? When that doesn't happen and the bills actually go up, will Ehrlich admit that his argument is ridiculous? Somehow I doubt it. Furthermore, it doesn't take a genius to recognize that if every internet site has to pay once for bandwidth and then a second time to "get access" to end users, that the cost of basically every internet service out there is going to go way up -- meaning that end users will be paying a lot more.

But that sort of "logic" eludes Ehrlich.

Why? Think of it this way. The cable, fiber, DSL, wireless and satellite companies that bring you the Internet serve two markets at the same time. They try to attract customers to be their users, and they try to attract websites to be their content. The more users they get, the more content they attract, and the more content they attract, the more users they get.

This is also totally incorrect. It's as if Ehrlich has never actually been on the internet. The big broadband companies have never tried to "attract websites to be their content." No internet site in the history of internet sites was created because a big broadband provider said, "Hey, be content for us!" No, internet sites are created because those sites want end users, and those end users are on the internet requesting their content. Hell, based on this ridiculous argument, shouldn't Comcast, AT&T and Verizon be paying me for being "their content"?

The problem is, however, only one side of that two-sided market pays - you, people like you and me and Selby.

Again, not true. Both sides pay for their bandwidth. What Ehrlich wants is for internet companies to pay again for the bandwidth you already paid for.

Content pays the neutral rate for the neutral service, which means they can keep their advantages (like caching and private-backbone networks) and create congestion, while letting you pay for the Internet, lock, stock and barrel.

Again, those "advantages" improve the internet for everyone. The congestion -- as many broadband providers have more or less admitted -- is entirely their own fault. They have more than enough capacity, but are letting ports clog to create fake bottlenecks to try to force these companies to pay.

Think about a newspaper - it works the same way. The Chronicle attracts readers so it can attract advertisers. It also attracts advertisers so it can attract readers. What if The Chronicle weren't allowed to accept money from advertisers because "newspaper neutrality" made it impossible to let some stores advertise and others not? The price of the paper would go up, because the reader would have to carry the entire cost of the paper.

Bad analogy is bad. It doesn't work the same way, at all. The real analogy here is that imagine if you paid for your newspaper subscription and the newspaper pays the delivery fees and their taxes, but then the guy who paved the road to your house demanded that the newspapers also pay an extra fee to use those roads that he paved (even though he was fully paid for the paving). It's a tollbooth. And that's what the big broadband providers are doing.

And let's remember that the premium signal that the neutrality advocates want would make it harder to get distance learning, remote medicine, live entertainment, gaming and other innovations that need an unbuffered connection. If you have one speed limit, you can't have ambulances.

None of this is true. It's outright dishonesty. There is more than enough capacity to provide those services if the big broadband providers don't deliberately let ports clog, as they're currently doing.

Ehrlich's entire piece is incredibly dishonest. And, furthermore, the San Francisco Chronicle does not disclose the fact that he's paid by a lobbying firm hired by the big broadband providers to spew this sort of misleading crap. I guess if you're going to be totally dishonest about the arguments for net neutrality, why not also be dishonest about who's paying the bill, huh?

Meanwhile, a similarly misguided piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal, by the paper's former publisher, L. Gordon Crovitz. At least with Crovitz, I don't think that he's directly being paid by broadband companies. I just think he's shown a pretty long history of being somewhat clueless about how the internet works and is incredibly gullible to claims made by biased parties about how things work. In the past, Crovitz flunked internet history by arguing that it was created by private companies without government support (not at all true). Crovitz also recently argued that all Snowden had really proven was that the NSA is really, really careful about its surveillance. Once again, here, he's quite confused on the facts:

But as Internet use grew, sites like Google created their own fast lanes by sending data directly to ISPs such as phone and cable companies via what are called "peering" arrangements. Sites like Netflix created another set of fast lanes using "content delivery networks" to place their computer servers inside local ISPs so that video and other bandwidth-hoggers can be delivered smoothly.

In other words, fast lanes won't kill the Internet. They've saved the Internet.

Again, this is buying into the myth that CDNs violate net neutrality. They don't. Full stop. CDNs make things better for all internet users equally. Violating net neutrality doesn't.

If it weren't for these fast lanes, the Web would have screeched to a halt when photos and video began to supplement text-based traffic. At peak times, Netflix alone now accounts for one-third of all Internet traffic. If it weren't using its own network to cache video locally around the world, other traffic on the Web would get hung up or delayed. Fast lanes keep everything else flowing smoothly, from email to security cameras to remote surgery.

Again, (yes, I'm on repeat here), CDNs are about improving access for everyone. As others have pointed out, a CDN doesn't degrade other traffic. It improves the overall experience by moving content closer to the edges of the network. The efforts by Comcast, Verizon and AT&T are entirely different. They're looking to reallocate traffic to burden some players in favor of those who pay. That's picking winners and losers. The impact is wholly different. A CDN benefits everyone. The gatekeeper broadband providers are looking to hinder some sites in order to favor those who pay.

Crovitz then goes further, buying into the broadband spin and bullshit about what reclassification would mean:

Activist groups in Washington with benign names like Free Press and Public Knowledge want the Internet reclassified as a public utility, subject to the sort of regulations that micromanaged railroad monopolies in the late 19th century and the phone monopoly in the 20th.

That would spell the end of permissionless innovation on the Internet. Bureaucrats would have authority to dictate how networks operate, which technologies can be used, and what prices can be charged. Regulators would approve or disapprove innovation in business terms as well as in technology.

No, it wouldn't. There's a reason we keep talking about forbearance rules in association with reclassification, and it's because with forbearance, the FCC could restrict all of that bureaucratic mess. And, even if it didn't, it wouldn't make a direct difference for "permissionless innovation on the internet" because that's actually protected by not allowing the big broadband providers to pick winners and losers as it desires.

There are legitimate concerns to be raised about how to best protect the internet and innovation online. But bogus arguments claiming that CDNs prove that there is no net neutrality don't help. They just make whoever wrote them look clueless about how the internet works. Those claims were debunked nearly a decade ago. To keep bringing them up today requires being willfully or deliberately ignorant of the facts.

from the wow dept

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a puff piece showing just how much work it is for NBC Universal to keep fighting all those darn pirates. It's basically a propaganda piece starring Rick "Save the Corn Farmers!" Cotton, NBC's general counsel who fights piracy the way that Captain Ahab chases Moby Dick. There are all sorts of problems with the piece, including the fact that it appears to believe that just because NBC is sending a lot more takedowns, it means that the "problem" is growing. Of course, as we were just discussing last week, when you look at the actual data, it makes a pretty clear case for anti-piracy efforts doing nothing to stop piracy, but investment in lots of innovative startups providing consumers what they want being the path to success. But, that's not Cotton's style.

Anyway, Janko Roettgers, over at PaidContent, wrote a nice post debunking much of the story, which quickly got three comments that all sounded vaguely similar in their poor use of the English language -- all of which tried to spin the story into "proof" that greater enforcement, such as the six strikes effort, was needed. Two of them make the laughable claim that each infringement represents "lost revenue." That's not how it works. Here's one of the three comments:

I’m glad the author is pointing out what is pretty clear to people who browse the internet everyday, piracy is still widespread and is evolving every year. Not even taking into account the huge piracy issues overseas, each of these takedown requests represents lost revenue for both views and time spend tracking and reporting this illegal behavior. NBC will and should continue to do this because legal viewing of their content is vital for their business. But the better long term solution is to create a system where NBC isn’t playing a carnival game just to receive the proper copyright benefits for the content they invest so much in.

Of course, the real way to get to that "long term solution" is for NBC to stop playing the carnival game of takedowns -- which do nothing to reduce infringement -- and focus on making sure its content is more widely available from more legitimate sources.

Kelseliz, AlexB and SteveFeather, I’m glad you all enjoyed my story. However, I’m not too surprised you all share the same point of view. After all, the three of you commented from the same Washington D.C.-based IP address, and one of the email addresses you left points to a D.C. lobbying firm that gets paid by major labels, rights holder groups and movie studios… but I’m sure that’s all just one big coincidence.

I know that it's common in our comments for people to accuse others of being "shills." Frankly, people jump to the shill label way too fast. While it is clear that some of our commenters do work in the industry, there are very few indications that they are paid to be propaganda spreaders, and I try to give them the benefit of the doubt (similarly, I would urge our commenters to stop throwing around the "shill" term so readily -- unless there's actual evidence, don't leap to unsupported conclusions). That said, in this case it seems pretty blatant that some entertainment industry "friends" from a DC lobbying group are now out trying to spread a very poorly argued concept that we somehow "need" six strikes. I'd suggest that the RIAA, MPAA and others might find better ways to spend their money.

from the well-that's-awkward dept

So, there's been this slightly weird tangent in the Oracle/Google patent & copyright dispute, in which Judge Alsup -- for reasons that are still not clear to anyone -- ordered both companies to disclose the names of any "authors, journalists, commentators or bloggers who have and/or may publish comments on the issues in [the] case." Both sides made filings last week, with Oracle disclosing -- as was already public -- that it had blogger Florian Mueller on staff as a consultant, and mentioning an Oracle employee who blogged about the case. Google, on the other hand, told the court that it hadn't paid anyone to comment on the case at all, but did mention that in the course of its regular activities, it does give money to various companies, some of whom may have had employees who commented on the story. Judge Alsup came back earlier this week and told Google it didn't try hard enough and to find some names to name.

Earlier today, Google did its filing and apparently found some names... including mine! Yes, I know that we've had some haters declaring for years that I'm a Google shill, so this must be the confirmation of all their conspiracy theories, rumors and attacks, right? Well, no. I'm named in the section about CCIA -- the Computer and Communications Industry Association. Why? Because CCIA sponsored some research that we did. Here's what the filing states:

And, yes, CCIA has commissioned a study by my company (Floor64) which I co-authored. And that's, uh, public knowledge. Here's my post back in January announcing the Sky is Rising report, in which it says, upfront, that it was sponsored by CCIA. And, of course, you can go check out the Sky is Rising report yourself directly, which has a nice big CCIA logo on the front. Hell, if you want, you can also donate some money for the ebook version -- and it, too, will come with the CCIA logo.

I'm not sure how that has anything to do with Google. Google is a CCIA member, as are a bunch of other companies. And, honestly, if you'd asked me yesterday, I would have said that I thought Oracle was a CCIA member too, because it's an organization that represents a bunch of top tech companies, including Microsoft, eBay, Sprint, Facebook, AMD, Fujitsu, Dish Networks and more. However, it appears that Oracle is not a CCIA member, though I only learned this today from the filing, which also notes that Oracle and Sun used to be CCIA members. So, I'm not sure what any of that says about anything.

And, of course, if the point of this exercise is to uncover "shills" who are really speaking on behalf of companies without disclosing it, once again this argument falls down. My position on issues related to copyright and patents has been pretty damn consistent since before Google existed. And that continues up until today. I will regularly call out Google for patent and copyright behavior that I believe is bad. And that's because I say what I think. The editorial content of this site has never been for sale, nor will it ever be. Because the only way I survive in this business is with my reputation.

Also, I'm not sure what's with the Friendfeed link in the filing. To be honest, I'd completely forgotten about Friendfeed, which I thought was shut down after Facebook bought the company. But I believe my Friendfeed just sucked in my Twitter account and Techdirt's Twitter account into a single feed. And apparently it lives on without my knowledge.

Separately, because all of this struck me as interesting, I remembered that we did some work with Oracle too! And, just as with what we did with CCIA, it was disclosed publicly at the time. Oracle (along with Intel) sponsored a section of our site, and a series of webinars that we did. And yet, Oracle did not disclose me in their original filing and I don't believe that they filed a new filing here either. Of course, as with CCIA, our relationship with Oracle did not include them having any say in editorial either. In fact, with the order as broad as it was from Judge Alsup, I'd argue that there's a much stronger argument that I should be in the Oracle filing than the Google one. But, of course, Oracle didn't include us because it was a random blog sponsorship thing they did a while back which had nothing to do with editorial (or even intellectual property issues).

In the end, this comes right back to some of the concerns that were raised about Judge Alsup's broad order in the first place. If you want to find tenuous connections, they exist. In fact, Google's filing lists out a bunch of other names (including many people who I know or consider friends), almost all of whom have a long, long history of holding the exact same positions, and where the connection to "Google money" is, at best, weak.

Like many folks, I was curious to see who would be named on both of these lists, but the order was so broad that it seems to have swept me up into it (on one side, though a broad reading says it would make more sense for me to be on the other one!), and that's silly. I'm a big boy and I can handle people not understanding the details here and attacking me, but the fact that we did unrelated research for a different organization that Google is a member of -- and that gets me named on a list of "shills" just doesn't seem right.

from the telling... dept

It's really quite amazing how frequently those who support more draconian copyright laws seem to be caught up in ethically dubious copying. We just had the example of the Hollywood astroturf group, CreativeAmerica, pretty blatantly "remixing" an anti-SOPA email alert from Public Knowledge, and turning it into a pro-SOPA argument. But this next one seems even worse. SOPA supporters, such as the MPAA and the very same Creative America, seemed overjoyed to point folks to an opinion piece in the Salt Lake Tribune by the state's attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, claiming to support SOPA and PIPA.

Just one little tiny problem... there appears to be a fair bit of evidence that Shurtleff "copied" his work from elsewhere and simply "remixed" the work of others. TorrentFreak goes into great detail how many of the statements in the opinion piece supposedly written by Shurtleff, have appeared elsewhere from pro-SOPA folks.

To back up this claim we will highlight a few sentences from the Attorney General’s article, and compare them with those previously delivered by the MPAA and affiliated pro-copyright groups.

The first sentence that caught our attention is: “It will take a strong, sustained effort to stop Internet thieves and profiteers.”

Strong words, but also familiar ones. In fact, former MPAA President Bob Pisano uttered exactly the same words in 2010 when he congratulated the Senate Judiciary Committee with unanimously approving the COICA bill, the predecessor to SOPA and PIPA.

They go on to find lots of other rather complex phrases that show up in both Shurtleff's "new" opinion piece... and lobbying efforts from times past. In fact, the whole thing seems like a classic "remix" -- cutting and pasting lots of works from elsewhere, and creating something "new" out of it. Who knows if this reaches the legal standard for copyright infringement... but it certainly calls into serious question either the legitimacy of the op-ed... or, the competence of Shurtleff. Once again, we think such remixing is good and should be allowed. But it's pretty crazy to argue for laws like SOPA... and do so with what certainly sounds like plagiarized phrases from elsewhere.

from the eh? dept

We've talked in the past about how Netflix has done a lot right over the years, but that doesn't preclude them from making a wrong step. Apparently, with the company's launch in Canada, it decided to hire actors to pretend they were really excited at the launch event (found via Mathew Ingram). Not only that, but many of the paid "actors" were then made available to journalists to interviews about how excited they were... without revealing that they were being paid by Netflix. They were apparently given the following instructions:

"Extras are to behave as members of the public, out and about enjoying their day-to-day life, who happen upon a street event for Netflix and stop by to check it out," reads an information sheet handed out to extras.

"Extras are to look really excited, particularly if asked by media to do any interviews about the prospect of Netflix in Canada."

Netflix has since apologized, and claimed that the "script" wasn't supposed to be given to the "extras," but was merely to get the permit for the launch event, which they had described as a "documentary." Either way, the fact that no one saw a problem with this before it got this far is pretty damning.

from the can-we-kill-this-myth? dept

Recently, we had a post about yet another overreaching copyright statement on a website that made claims to rights that copyright simply does not grant. In the comments, someone responded with the silly line that fair use is not a right, it's just a "defense." This is both wrong and misleading. It is true that fair use is a defense that can be used in court -- but the reason it can be used as a defense is because it's a right provided to people who are making use of copyrighted works without permission. This was explained quite clearly by Adam Wasserman in our comments.

Apparently, the whole "fair use isn't a right" line is a part of the copyright lobby's talking points this week, as Patrick Ross (who is paid to promote stronger copyright laws) has written up an entire editorial at News.com stating that fair use is not a right. He's flat out wrong. The entire reason that a fair use defense is allowed is because it is a right. The rest of Ross's argument is typically misleading or outright wrong. He never explains why it's okay for companies to exaggerate and lie about what copyright allows them to do -- other than to suggest it would just be too complicated to have a copyright notice that accurately explains fair use. It may true that it would be cumbersome, but that doesn't explain why copyright holders get to lie about what kind of protections copyright provides them. Ross, as per usual, believes that the rights of the copyright holder are more important than the rights of the user (which is exactly the opposite of why copyrights were put in place in the first place). Therefore, he writes as though trampling on users' rights is no big deal, as long as it protects all copyright holders' rights. Unfortunately for Ross, our nation's founders were quite worried about the dangers of granting monopoly protection and were much more focused on protecting the rights of citizens to make use of information. They were quite clear that monopolies need to have their limits -- and too many companies are overstepping those limits.